Cancer gets grants ready for Legislature's OK

AUSTIN - Despite identifying a problem with another of its grant awards, the state's embattled cancer agency prepared Monday to move $182 million in grants out of politically imposed limbo.

In its first meeting since taking heat from numerous committees of the 2013 Legislature, the governing board of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas authorized staff to start negotiating contracts on 159 grants stalled by a moratorium called for by Gov. Rick Perry and other leaders. The board instructed staff not to sign the contracts.

"If the moratorium is lifted, we will be ready to move each of these grants forward without delay," said Wayne Roberts, the agency's interim executive director. "(But) CPRIT staff will not execute any contracts with any grantees until we receive appropriate direction from the Legislature and state leadership."

Top officials resigned

The grants have been the source of much debate since they were frozen in mid-December. State legislators have warned agency leaders not to hand out more money until they've restored public trust in how they conduct business.

At the same time, legislators have expressed concern the suspension of the announced grants could harm the state in the long run, particularly by causing it to lose prominent researchers recruited from out of state but unwilling to keep waiting.

The state's taxpayer-funded, decade-long $3 billion assault on cancer is under fire for improprieties - conflicts of interest, backstage politics, bypassed procedures - in the awarding of three grants totaling more than $60 million.

The improprieties led to the resignations of its three top officials, one a Nobel Prize winner, and prompted a number of investigations, one criminal.

160 grants reviewed

In a withering report, state auditors listed problems in seven major areas, from how the agency makes grant decisions to how it monitors the spending of public dollars.

Billy Hamilton, interim senior consultant, reported to the agency's oversight committee Monday that staff reviewed the 160 grants that were announced in August and December, then stopped work.

He said all except one grant properly followed agency procedures.

Hamilton said the cancer agency failed to follow correct procedures in reviewing a $1.2 million Baylor College of Medicine proposal.

The proposal, favorably reviewed by a scientific review subcommittee, was removed from the unfavorably reviewed multi-institutional grant and presented to the oversight committee, even though it was never reviewed by the full scientific review committee.

The oversight committee said it would encourage the Baylor researcher to resubmit the grant.